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Written By

William Kimberley

LMP2, engines and sensors win at the WMS Awards

6 December 2017

There was great and stiff completion across all the categories at this year’s RACE TECH World Motorsport Symposium Awards, but all the winners proved worthy for their remarkable innovation, proficiency and game-changing technologies.

LMP2 chassis and engine suppliers and fuel flow sensor technology recognised in RACE TECH World Motorsport Symposium awards ORECA, Gibson Technologies and Sentronics were the big winners of the night.

ORECA’s Technical Director David Floury was presented with the prestigious Dino Toso Racecar Aerodynamicist of the Year award for the work that he and Jean-Philippe Pélaprat, ORECA’s aerodynamic/CFD engineer had achieved with the 07, the car that absolutely dominated the LMP2 class in the World Endurance Championship in 2017, to the point that it is not been granted any updates to the design that have been granted to rival manufacturers in the class.

Meanwhile LMP2 engine supplier Gibson Technology was awarded the Race Engine Design of the Year with Operations Director John Manchester and Technical Director Ian Lovett receiving the award for the 4.2 litre GK428.

There was almost an upset of seismic proportions at the 2017 Le Mans 24 Hours when it looked for a while as if a Gibson-powered ORECA LMP2 car was going to perform a giant-killing act. In the end, the fairytale finish didn’t happen with Porsche taking the lead with 20 laps to go. Remarkably, the Gibson Technology-powered LMP2 cars finished second through to seventh, together the LMP2 cars completing 143,400 km in a combined total of 719 hours and 27 minutes, which is something like circumnavigating the globe three and a half times. Furthermore, oil consumption was kept to a minimum, most teams adding just half or a whole litre of oil to the engine during the 24 hours.

Sentronics received the award for the Don Burgoon Most Innovative New Motorsport Product of the Year award from Mary Ann Burgoon, CEO of Performance Friction Corporation, for the FlowSonic range of ultrasonic sensors.

Thanks to the second-generation technology built into Sentronics’ FlowSonic range of ultrasonic sensors, 2017 was a breakthrough season which started to realise the potential of precision fuel flow measurement for motorsport in all its applications. The FlowSonic Elite model was used by the championship-winning teams in IndyCar and IMSA’s GTLM category to help optimise their fuel use and pit stop strategies. The entry-level FlowSonic Pro even scored a success at British club racing level, fitted to the runner-up in Class C of the MSV Trackday Championship. By the end of the year, Sentronics had been selected as the sole supplier of fuel flow sensors to the FIA Formula 1 World Championship for the enforcement of fuel flow limits and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.